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Post by Scott on Oct 16, 2018 6:19:13 GMT -5
Anybody check out the new Netflix series yet? I just watched the first episode. I liked it. It tries for a more suspenseful approach with the occasional jumps scare. It can be a little too tropey at times, even my 12 year old complained the characters were a little too cliche.
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Post by GRWelsh on Oct 16, 2018 8:36:56 GMT -5
I just put it my queue yesterday. It is yet another one directed by Mike Flanagan. I've been on a roll lately watching his movies (OCULUS, HUSH, GERALD'S GAME), so I'm looking forward to it. It's based on the classic "haunted house" novel by Shirley Jackson, which I've always wanted to read but never got around to. Maybe some of it seems cliche because it was written in 1959... It's been around long enough to be copied.
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Post by Scott on Oct 16, 2018 9:41:43 GMT -5
That’s definitely part of it. You can’t make a gothic, atmospheric haunted house movie without a few of those cliches. It seems like the premise is back and forth time jumping between the time the characters spent at Hill House years ago, and their current lives, and how they get dragged back into the drama.
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Post by GRWelsh on Oct 19, 2018 8:18:31 GMT -5
Three episodes in, and it's awesome so far. I like how it is mainly about the psychological effects of the haunted house on a family over time, keeping the actual encounters with the supernatural ambiguous and rare. This strikes the right chord for me, because I always think that if the supernatural is real, it is also ambiguous enough for plausible deniability -- at least for most people.
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Post by geneweigel on Oct 19, 2018 8:56:30 GMT -5
Trying to watch but they keep pushing for "family night". Maybe tonight.
I really pushed but it ended up watching THE KINDERGARTEN TEACHER (a 2018 Netflix movie with Maggie Gyllenhal) which surprisingly I found thought provoking.
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Post by geneweigel on Oct 22, 2018 6:48:52 GMT -5
I watched three and its pretty good. I like the way they're hiding ghosts in plain sight. It seems like the people writing this have had experience with spooky houses with all the plausible deniability and sort of encounters not enough to prove anything.
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Post by geneweigel on Oct 24, 2018 11:43:29 GMT -5
I'm up to 5, its definitely done in an interesting style. Honestly? I can relate on many levels: user relatives, abandoning places and people, haunted houses, and ghostly dreams/feelings. Too familiar.
That was Russ "West Side Story" (1961) Tamblyn as the psychiatrist. He was in the 1963 original "THE HAUNTING" movie (as well as WAR OF THE GARGANTUAS [1966]).
So far its better than the 1999 Liam Neeson/"Wow guy" remake. Apparently, the mini-series STEPHEN KING'S ROSE RED (2002) started as a theatrical remake of THE HAUNTING with King and Spielberg but they went head to head and King took the production with him to TV.
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Post by geneweigel on Oct 28, 2018 21:31:19 GMT -5
Just finished. It was a well put together thing. Very enjoyable atmospheric slice of life horror.
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Post by Scott on Oct 28, 2018 21:44:06 GMT -5
I'm plugging along as I get the chance. Nice change of pace for horror. Good job at building suspense and nice to watch something horror that doesn't take the lazy, jump scare route. I'm on vacation this week, so I should get to finish it up.
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Post by geneweigel on Oct 29, 2018 8:50:01 GMT -5
My 13 year old couldn't sleep after watching this so beware.
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Post by GRWelsh on Oct 30, 2018 13:45:01 GMT -5
I finished this and it was good, but not so much scary as creepy and then in the end heartbreaking.
It was interesting to compare and contrast this with the first season of AMERICAN HORROR STORY which had a very similar premise: a houseful of ghosts from across time, and how they interacted with each other and the living. I liked both, but they were very different in tone. AHS embraced the campiness almost to the point of being a dark comedy, but this one leaned in direction of family drama and even sentimentality at the end.
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Post by geneweigel on Oct 30, 2018 15:29:41 GMT -5
Yeah, definitely not reaching for the brass "horror" ring. A good example would be the estranged pregnant wife scene where you don't know her that well and its implied she is a phantasm to feel the pain but if you did that would have been really horrible.
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Post by davegibsongreyhawkdm on Oct 31, 2018 21:52:33 GMT -5
Just watched first episode tonight - I'm in, I like it very much so far!
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Post by davegibsongreyhawkdm on Oct 31, 2018 22:08:12 GMT -5
With the name of the writer character, Steven Crain (spelling?), made me think of Stephen Crane, author of The Red Badge of Courage?
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Post by GRWelsh on Nov 1, 2018 7:54:56 GMT -5
With the name of the writer character, Steven Crain (spelling?), made me think of Stephen Crane, author of The Red Badge of Courage? I hadn't made that connection, but it has possible significance. From what I've read, the characters in the miniseries have been reworked or in some cases invented out of whole cloth. I don't want to mention any spoilers, so I'll just say I'll liked the character interactions and family dynamics in this series a lot, and also the different memories and interpretations the characters had about Hill House. Steven is the "Hollywood skeptic" -- the guy who just doesn't want to believe even though he has evidence, or cannot believe it until he's had enough time to process it. But he's also portrayed as a sort of parasite living off of the trauma of others... Perhaps that is how some people saw Stephen Crane, who wasn't even alive during the Civil War, yet became famous writing about it.
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Post by geneweigel on Nov 1, 2018 9:29:02 GMT -5
It might also be a tribute to the storyline of Crane's RED BADGE OF COURAGE which has the coward character reapproach the situation to get the eponymous "red badge".
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Post by davegibsongreyhawkdm on Nov 5, 2018 13:50:18 GMT -5
Completed three episodes.
Enjoyed the retrocognition episode.
Also enjoyed dumb waiter excursion to basement.
I've always thought cats must be demons...
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Post by davegibsongreyhawkdm on Nov 25, 2018 10:11:47 GMT -5
Finished this up last night - this series was very well done, though as Gene said, did not reach for the brass ring of horror...
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